MacGill returns to cricket with Big Bash

December 02, 2011 10:25 IST

Former Australia leg-spinner Stuart MacGill has come out of retirement to play for the Sydney Sixers in Australia's revamped domestic Twenty20 league.

MacGill joins Shane Warne, who will play for the Melbourne Stars, and several other former Australia cricketers coming back to play in the Big Bash tournament, Australia's answer to the Indian Premier League.

McGill took 208 wickets from 44 Test matches despite Warne, the nation's premier legspinner, shutting him out of the national team for much of his career.

Warne announced his comeback earlier this month after declaring his final match for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL would be his last to allow him to focus on his media

work and business interests.

Now a silver-haired 40-year-old, MacGill retired in 2008 after suffering carpal tunnel syndrome and only played five T20 matches, the last for an English county side in 2003.

"As soon as I found out there was a team playing here at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground), I guess it was always bouncing around in my head, just to play here one more time," MacGill said in a video posted on the team's website Friday (www.sydneysixers.com.au).

"I always thought (T20)

was good for the old blokes. Doesn't really matter if you hit me over the fence. I've been hit there before."

The Sydney Sixers play their first match in the eight-team competition on December 16